- Mr Turnbull described how, having obtained damaging material on opponents, Cambridge Analytica can discreetly push it onto social media and the internet.
He said: “… we just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again… like a remote control. It has to happen without anyone thinking, ‘that’s propaganda’, because the moment you think ‘that’s propaganda’, the next question is, ‘who’s put that out?’.”
Mr Nix also said: “…Many of our clients don’t want to be seen to be working with a foreign company… so often we set up, if we are working then we can set up fake IDs and websites, we can be students doing research projects attached to a university, we can be tourists, there’s so many options we can look at. I have lots of experience in this.”
Facebook: whoopsie we've been caught with our pants down, let's pretend we care.
Soooooo just to re-emphasize, I think this could be some of the biggest news in recent history. Cambridge Analytica (CA) yesterday released the most clumsy rebuttal that I've ever read. I wonder if it's a lie! Channel 4 is releasing another undercover video at 1900 UTC today, in which the CA people describe how they won the election for Donald Trump. I expect that the UK authorities will soon swarm the offices of CA and SCL, the parent company. Facebook stock was down about 7% yesterday, LOL. I'll wager it's gonna take an even bigger dive today. People are vastly underestimating how big this whole story is going to get.
I'm skeptically but excitedly awaiting the new report. CA did some shady shit, but they also have an incentive to claim that they personally delivered the goods for Trump. Nothing could drum up business from other dickholes like a claim that you got Trump elected. I stand firmly by my conviction that racists got Trump elected and that they really didn't need Facebook's help. All the Trump voters I know fall into (a) fingers in the ear screaming about hating Hillary, (b) I don't give a hit who I vote for as long as my taxes are lower, and (c) implicitly and explicitly racist people. None of those categories are mutually exclusive of the others, or course. All that said, FB taking a nosedive would make me happy. Fuck them hard.
You were right to be skeptical. It was a little bit underwhelming, but it's hard to top yesterday's Ukranian hookers admission. The new report explicitly acknowledged that CA stood everything to gain from claiming that they were responsible for Trump's election victory in what they presumed was a sales meeting, and off the record. CA claimed that they engineered the "lock her up" tagline and accompanying media, which they then passed to the campaign. Like 'bl00 said, they touted their targeting of the emotional core of any given debate, and were very methodical in deciding to target swing states that Hillary failed to campaign in adequately. You might've caught this last month, but the votes for Stein were encouraged by the Russians, effectively depleting the democratic turnout for Hilldawg. That there is a similarity in tactics between Russian and CA approaches to misinformation, kompromat, emotional appeals, etc. is very disconcerting, though not necessarily direct evidence that they worked together. I still think it's quite likely that Mueller will get Flynn or Bannon to concede that the campaign shared intel and/or funding with the Russians. And Kushner's got a baby face that looks like it could positively sing if he's ever on the stand. Either way, the Mercers are terrible people. Terrible people with absurdly large foreheads.
Have you watched the Channel 4 stuff? It's about 40 minutes of your time (so far) and totally worth it. One of the points they make is that elections are driven entirely by emotion, and what Cambridge Analytica did was surgically target emotion to achieve the electoral outcomes they wanted. Targeting on "daisy" is "people watching Patty Duke." Targeting on "south united" could be as granular as "men 16-22 within 2 miles of zip 90210 who like sports, exercise and sci fi television." You're right: at the end of the day, that person has to vote. But at the end of the day, he had to have a reason.
I haven't had the opportunity to watch yet, but I will. Did they put effort into suppression, as well (in an area where I can't watch the clips). I'm intrigued by how many people just didn't vote. Mitt Romney got more GO votes in MI than Trump yet Trump won. Turnout was low, and a bunch of morons voted Stein or Johnson. Targeting none of the above a la Brewster's millions was probably more effective than convincing people to vote psychopath.
Who's got two thumbs and an eye on FB? It's worth noting that Facebook is the F in FAANG. FAANG is the gains in the stock market going back to 2016 at least. And Cambridge Analytica have been implicated in the Brexit and the Brits are totally cool with killing 158-year-old newspapers over shit like this so yeah. I'd say we're outside "business as usual."
The Zucc’s also out though. I would not be surprised if this is the snowflake that will cascade into an avalanche.
Meanwhile... "What if, hear me out, instead of internet highways, we built highways made of concrete, and instead of friending someone digitally, you had to be in voice proximity to friend someone auditorally?" "OMG it's so crazy it just might work."
So here's my question. CA has so far been reaaallly clumsy in their handling this, as you say. But let's not let our hope of some dirt on Trump cloud observation: this is a company whose sole existence has centered around successfully manipulating the media narrative. Why are they now botching this so horribly? I'd be curious to know who's in charge over there now, and to what extent they may have an interest in torpedoing Trump.
I think they've just never been on blast before like this. Things really got out from under their thumb(s). My fear is that they've genuinely committed no crime pertaining to Trump's campaign, thus no impetus for them to throw anyone under the bus. Guess we'll find out eventually. Or maybe not :(.
There is a guy on reddit doing that. He posts a summary of the Russia investigation once a week. Here is the most recent one.
This is truly incredible. Russia be damned, if these guys end up testifying to Mueller about tactics negotiated with the Trump campaign, that's gonna ensnare a boatload of people currently in the White House. Meanwhile, in dumbfuck circusville, Top Russia probe Republican: 'No intention' of calling Cambridge Analytica officials back. Help us Obi-wan Mueller, you're our only hope. At least, until January of 2019.
The shitty thing about relying on Mueller is that Mueller's mandate isn't to investigate what happened. His mandate is to investigate if any crimes occurred and if so, to prosecute those responsible. There are probably a lot of nefarious things that happened that don't reach the level of prosecutable. Those things are not things Mueller is likely to inform the public about. Those are things that it should be up to Congress to inform the public about. When Schiff is the new chair of the intelligence committee, he needs to start subpoenaing motherfuckers with reckless abandon, and then have as many people as possible testify in open sessions. We have a right to know what happened, and that's the only way we'll ever find out. The only things that should be off limits from public view are sources and methods interviews from intelligence gatherers.Help us Obi-wan Mueller, you're our only hope.
Yeah that was kind of the point of hiring him. He has the kind of conservative cred that you can only get by advocating for an illegal war and then never getting held to account for it. Initially all the conservatives were lauding the appointment, because they couldn't scream about partisanship. That's what makes it all the more bizarre that they gaslighted the American public into somehow taking seriously claims that he's part of a vast liberal or "deep state" (a pure bullshit conspiracy theorist term) conspiracy.
Head of Security gave up the theater.Mr. Stamos said he would leave Facebook but was persuaded to stay through August to oversee the transition of his responsibilities and because executives thought his departure would look bad, the people said. He has been overseeing the transfer of his security team to Facebook’s product and infrastructure divisions. His group, which once had 120 people, now has three, the current and former employees said.